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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tampon.

A plug of cotton or other absorbent material inserted into a body cavity or wound to absorb fluid, especially one inserted in the vagina during menstruation.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun[ˈtʰæmpɒn]Received-Pronunciation[ˈtʰæmpɑn]General-American

  1. A plug of cotton or other absorbent material inserted into a body cavity or wound to absorb fluid, especially one inserted in the vagina during menstruation.

  2. A double-headed drumstick primarily for the bass drum.

  3. An inking pad used in lithographic printing.

Where this word comes from

First attested in 1848. Borrowed from French tampon, from Middle French tampon, a nasalised variant of tapon, a diminutive or augmented form of Old French tape (“plug, bung, tap”), from Frankish *tappō (“stopper, plug”), from Proto-Germanic *tappô (“plug, tap”). Cognate with Old High German zapfo (“stopper”), Old English tæppa (“stopper”). Doublet of tampion. More at tap.

verb[ˈtʰæmpɒn]Received-Pronunciation[ˈtʰæmpɑn]General-American

  1. To plug (a wound) with a tampon or compress.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

First attested in 1848. Borrowed from French tampon, from Middle French tampon, a nasalised variant of tapon, a diminutive or augmented form of Old French tape (“plug, bung, tap”), from Frankish *tappō (“stopper, plug”), from Proto-Germanic *tappô (“plug, tap”). Cognate with Old High German zapfo (“stopper”), Old English tæppa (“stopper”). Doublet of tampion. More at tap.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.